The military man's head snapped around, his muscles coiling tight, his brow furrowing in an expression of high alert. Pure soldier's instinct drove his hand to tighten its grip on the hilt of his knife—still buried deep in Aiden's leg—and in a single, reflexive motion, he yanked it free, causing blood to gush with renewed intensity, staining his hands and the floor. The sudden draft stirred his dark cape, but there was no one visible on the other side of the open door; only the blackness of the hallway and the whistling of the wind.
Aiden, breathing heavily, the taste of his own blood filling his mouth, barely managed to lift his gaze, his senses sharpened by the imminent danger. Something was terribly wrong. Much worse than before. The tension in the room had become almost solid, an invisible edge hanging over everyone present, making the hair on their necks stand on end.
The military man took barely a second to compose himself, discipline overriding his initial shock. But the urgency in his movements was palpable; he had to end this, and fast. He turned sharply toward Lirik, the gaunt-faced man with sunken eyes that were now wide as plates.
"You! Go check what that noise was," he ordered, his voice imperious.
The bandit visibly hesitated for only an instant, his eyes darting nervously between the dark doorway and the threatening figure of his boss; he knew he couldn't waver, or the military man would dispose of him easily. He brought a hand to his neck, touching a hidden amulet in a quick gesture before nodding, swallowing hard. "Yes, boss. Right away."
Aiden noticed that hesitation, that microsecond of pure terror in the thug's eyes. The bandits were unscrupulous scavengers, yes, but even the stupidest carrion possessed an instinct for survival. Something in the air, in the unnatural silence that followed the thud, felt wrong. And that bandit had sensed it with the same clarity an animal senses a superior predator nearby.
Lirik advanced with exaggerated caution, his hand gripping the hilt of his dagger so tightly it began to ache. Every shadow seemed to stretch, every gust of wind sounded like a direct warning. His uncertain footsteps echoed with ominous clarity on the damp stone floor as he headed toward the open door, stepping into the darkness of the hallway until he was swallowed by the night.
The military man didn't wait to see what happened to his subordinate. The information Aiden possessed, or that he believed him to possess, could be valuable. He turned his attention back to the prisoner, his eyes darkening with a growing irritation and poorly concealed impatience. The constant murmur of the wind against the cracked walls seemed to barely affect him, his focus fixed, determined to continue the interrogation.
"Time's running out."
He squeezed the bloody knife in his hand, twisting it slightly between his fingers, the blade catching reddish glints of Aiden's blood in the scarce light. "What were you looking for in the tavern?"
"I was just released from the Hollow Bastion. Where do you think I was going to get money easily?" Aiden responded, his voice a hoarse whisper, each word a painful effort. His vision was starting to blur at the edges.
The military man clenched his jaw, a vein throbbing visibly in his temple. "I highly doubt that's the case, considering you have a close enough relationship with the king for him to release you from prison and send one of his... agents to find you," he said, narrowing his eyes, his gaze trying to pierce Aiden's façade of indifference.
Aiden didn't respond. He remained silent, watching the military man with a calmness he hoped would be more irritating than any words. Did he think he was on some kind of mission?
"Did King Veilon order you to go to that tavern?" the military man insisted, his voice rising a tone.
But Aiden remained silent, causing the man to exhale with an audible frustration, a hiss of impatience. "What did he promise you in return? Gold? A position in his kingdom?"
But Aiden didn't answer, just continued his silence. A dense, defiant silence that filled the room and fueled the military man's irritation. The military man closed his eyes briefly, his nostrils flaring as he took a deep breath, fighting to control his growing, violent annoyance. When he opened them again, his gaze had become as sharp as the steel of his knife. "Speak up, you damn Svalthren bastard, or I swear I'll flay you alive right here."
The military man clenched his teeth so hard it seemed they would shatter, his patience finally crumbling with every second of defiant silence Aiden gifted him with grim satisfaction. His grip on the knife tightened until his knuckles went white, and without warning, with a guttural roar of pure rage, he plunged it to the hilt into Aiden's left shoulder. The sharp edge pierced the skin and tore through muscle with ease, meeting almost no resistance. The pain was a white-hot lightning bolt that shot through every nerve in Aiden's body, an agony so intense it threatened to steal his breath and consciousness. Instantly, the fatigue left him, replaced by a red stain that began to permeate from the wound. But he didn't scream. He wouldn't give him that pleasure.
The military man glared at him with a deranged fury, his face inches from Aiden's, his foul, rage-filled breath hitting the prisoner's sweaty, blood-soaked skin. "Don't you play the damned martyr with me!" he growled. "You're going to talk. Right now!"
Aiden clenched his jaw until he felt it creak, the cold metal of the knife buried deep in his flesh a constant, nauseating presence, his own warm blood sliding in a steady stream down his side and arm. But he didn't look away. He held the military man's bloodshot eyes with fierce determination, resolved to resist until the end.
The remaining bandits, Rynn and Kael, exchanged nervous glances, their boss's brutality visibly beginning to unnerve them. But the man didn't react to their hesitation. He only pressed the knife a little deeper, his patience reaching its absolute limit, about to break. But just at that precise instant, when darkness threatened to claim Aiden…
"Aaaaggh!" A harrowing, inhuman scream tore through the tense night air.
It wasn't the cry of an attacker, nor a scream of fury or battle. It was the choked shriek of someone dying, an expression of complete agony. The most frightening part was that it lasted only an instant before being brutally silenced, cut short. The scream, without a doubt, came from outside. Instantly, everyone in the room knew it was Lirik.
The bandits Rynn and Kael snapped their heads toward the open door in an automatic, spasmodic reflex, their hands instinctively clutching the hilts of their weapons with sudden desperation. A chill once again ran through everyone in the room, as if a gust of icy wind from a tomb had swept through it from end to end. The temperature seemed to drop several degrees in a single moment.
It was then that they all saw it, or rather, sensed it. In the dark threshold of the door, just where the pale moonlight cast long, ghostly shadows on the stone floor, a new silhouette had joined the darkness, framed for a moment against the slightly less dark exterior. It was not the small, nervous silhouette of the bandit who had gone to investigate. It was another, different—taller, more defined, and it emanated an aura of silent danger. The problem was that the shadow appeared for only the briefest instant before merging with the impenetrable blackness of the room, completely lost within it, as if the darkness itself had absorbed it.
The military man, the knife still buried to the hilt in Aiden's shoulder, straightened up immediately, his body becoming rigid and alert like an animal sensing a predator. "Who's there?" he said through his teeth, his voice barely a tense sound, stripped of all its former arrogance. The wind blew again through the open door, whistling with a mournful cry through the cracks in the weathered stone. Kael drew a knife from under his tattered hood with a visibly trembling hand, his wide eyes darting panickedly around the room. His seasoned thief's composure had shattered. Meanwhile Rynn, with a tense gesture, let Terum energy visibly course through his body in a red wake, creating an invisible armor around him, preparing for the imminent combat.
Aiden, still bound and immobilized by pain and the ropes, tried to observe the scene in tense silence, his vision clouded by blood loss. Every breath was an exercise in torture. He tried to perceive any source of Terum energy in the darkness that enveloped them, any fluctuation that would betray the intruder, but the only thing he clearly detected was the potent emanation from Rynn beside him. Whatever was lurking in that room emitted nothing, yet they could all feel an imminent danger over them.
Rynn advanced cautiously, his muscles tense and bulging under the reinforcing Terum energy, each step measured and alert. His shadow was cast, grotesquely elongated and distorted, against the opposite wall by the faint moonlight filtering through the opening high in the wall and the open door. He took a few more steps, moving into the darkest area near the entrance, and suddenly, he stopped dead, as if he had run into an invisible wall. His eyes scanned desperately into the farthest, darkest corner of the room, where the shadows were thickest, almost solid. Something was there. He could feel it. He couldn't see it, not yet, but the pressure in the air, the primal instinct of danger.
And then, without warning, without a single sound to betray the attack, his body fell heavily backward, as if his legs had vanished. There was no warning. Not the slightest sound of a struggle, not a choked cry, not the clash of weapons. Just an abrupt, senseless movement. His enormous figure collapsed to the floor with the inert stiffness of a rag doll whose strings had been cut, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. A trickle of dark blood began to snake from the base of his head, staining the floor.
Kael, who was right next to him, choked back a scream of pure terror and spun around with the agility of a cornered rat, his knives glinting faintly. But he didn't have the slightest chance to react, nor to defend himself. His body was ripped from the floor with superhuman, almost invisible speed, as if a dark force had seized him by the throat and lifted him like a puppet. For a fleeting instant, his silhouette was suspended in the air, his legs kicking uselessly and his arms clawing at his neck, trying to break free, just before he was hurled with inconceivable brutality against the nearest brick wall. The impact was so violent it made the walls tremble, sending a shower of fine dust and small stone fragments to the floor. His head took the brunt of the blow, making his neck snap with a gruesome crack that echoed through the room. Kael went still.
The military man, his face completely contorted by absolute terror, took a clumsy step back, nearly tripping, until he was practically pressed against the chair where Aiden was still tied. His trembling hands violently tore the knife from Aiden's shoulder, causing a new wave of blood and a choked groan from the prisoner, and he clung to the weapon as if it were the only thing that mattered in the world. The military man stared without blinking into the oppressive darkness surrounding him, his wide eyes trying to find something, any clue, any shadow, any movement that would betray the entity that had finished off his men in the blink of an eye. And then, at the edge of his peripheral vision, he thought he saw a figure move with fluid grace through the deepest shadows, a dark flash too fast to be real.
Plop.
The sound was strangely muffled, almost insignificant amidst the palpable tension. Something warm, viscous, and sticky splattered against Aiden's cheek, making him flinch. The military man seemed to freeze on the spot for an eternal second, his eyes wide with disbelief and horror, before slowly slumping forward. His body leaned lifelessly, hitting Aiden's wounded shoulder on its way down before collapsing heavily to the floor with a dull, final thud. The contact reignited the fire in his injured shoulder.
Aiden's eyes, despite the pain and shock, instinctively lowered to the fallen figure of his torturer. A thin, dark-bladed dagger, almost black, protruded cleanly from the top of the military man's skull, right in the center, buried with such precision and force that only the carved bone hilt was visible. The blade had pierced the bone as easily as if it were warm butter. The man's eyes, now fixed on the low, oppressive ceiling, were empty, dead, reflecting the faint, pale moonlight that filtered into the room and the pool of dark blood that was already beginning to form rapidly around him, spreading like a ravenous stain.
Aiden inhaled sharply, a shaky, ragged breath, his breathing becoming erratic and shallow. His muscles tensed instinctively, preparing for a threat he couldn't see, but the ropes held him cruelly immobile, vulnerable.
Then, in the absolute gloom, two red points glowed with an unnatural intensity, like incandescent embers appearing from nowhere. They shone with their own light, fixed on him with a predatory intensity that froze the blood in his veins. They didn't blink. They didn't move. They just watched him, studying him in the deadly stillness of the room. Aiden felt his throat go instantly dry, every fiber of his being screaming in alarm.
Slowly, with a fluid and silent grace that was even more unsettling, a figure emerged. Step by step, the uncertain moonlight began to reveal the contours of Angellon Norvel. Unlike the impeccable military uniform she had worn in their previous encounter, this time she wore a hood and a cloak of dark, supple leather, the lower hem visibly stained with recent blood splatters that shone darkly in the light. The only thing clearly visible under the hood was her pale face, framed by strands of dark violet hair, and that distant expression that seemed to be her natural state.
Angellon stopped just at the edge where the moonlight met the shadow, tilted her head slightly, and surveyed the scene of carnage at her feet with absolute calm, as if contemplating something within it. Then, in an imperturbable tone, devoid of any apparent emotion, she let her clear, sharp voice invade the heavy silence of the massacre. "It seems you've been quite busy in my absence."
Aiden felt his mind, dazed by the pain and shock that enveloped him like a shroud, struggled desperately to process what his eyes were seeing, to fit together the pieces of a puzzle that didn't make sense. The person who had just murdered three armed men and a military officer was not a beast or a hired killer on some dark mission. It was Angellon Norvel, a military officer in the direct service of King Veilon Thalmyr, supposedly a valuable piece on the kingdom's board of war and politics. And yet, there she was, surrounded by the corpses of her victims, having eliminated one of her own king's men, a military officer of Zhailon, without the slightest hesitation, without the slightest hint of remorse.
The Aiden of a few years ago, the young idealist who still believed in codes and loyalties, would have felt a mortal fear in this position. But the Aiden of now… the man who had spent fifteen years rotting in the shadows of the Hollow Bastion, who had been stripped of everything except his resentment, only felt a surge of rage and a disturbing doubt. Had he left the Hollow Bastion only to end up here? It had to be a damned joke. Yet, something disturbed him deeply, beyond the massacre itself: Angellon's eyes. Those unsettling red eyes, glowing in the gloom with an unnatural, savage fire. It wasn't the glow of someone whose eyes had turned a different color due to their connection or use of Terum. He had never seen a color like it.
"You're lucky I arrived before they finished you off," Angellon continued. She advanced a little further, her leather boot squelching indifferently in the pool of blood spreading from the dead military man. Aiden narrowed his eyes, his breathing still ragged and painful, the smell of blood and death suffocating him. "What do you want, Angellon?" he finally spat, his voice raspy and weak from the dried blood coating his throat and lips. She offered a smile that was almost amused, yet failed to hide the predatory coldness in her gaze. "Even if you decided to flee from here, Svalthren, even if you managed to escape to another continent, if Veilon truly wants you, he could find you and bring you back. Or he could do something much worse. You're not aware of it but," —she paused deliberately, her red eyes gleaming with malice, and for an almost imperceptible instant, the corner of her lips seemed to tighten— "your father, Alvan, is in Asnar, under the protection of my people."
"What?" Aiden asked, incredulous. "That's not true."
"Where do you think your father went after he was exiled? Your mother was an inhabitant of Asnar, so it was obvious the only support he would have would come from that land."
Aiden felt his stomach churn violently at the sound of that cursed name: Asnar. The worst place in the world his father could be, a nest of political vipers and ancient grudges where the Norvel's influence was nearly absolute. And if Veilon had ties or influence there through Angellon… no. Aiden wanted to avoid believing her, but it was true; his mother was born in Asnar and later met his father. It was foolish of him to think he would be on a safe spot. After all, ever since they came to Zhailon, his father had ended up exiled. Now he was trapped, once again.
His feverish, aching mind dragged him mercilessly into a whirlwind of memories he had tried to bury under layers of hatred and resentment for years. Eilhart Academy, his youthful years, training with fervor alongside his comrades, dreaming of becoming honorable warriors, protectors of their people. The fleeting chance he thought he had to be something more than an outcast, something more than the bearer of a cursed surname. But when one of the arrogant pups of the Thalmyr clan attacked his best friend, his sworn brother, Aiden saw no other path than that of blood and steel. A desperate fight that cost him his future, his honor, and finally, his freedom.
Because once the conflict ended, once the dust settled, everyone—absolutely everyone—sided with the Thalmyrs. They always did, and from the looks of it, they always would. The officers of King Zephandor's old army, the social-climbing nobles, the cowardly merchants—they all feigned a false neutrality while, in practice, condemning his people, the Svalthrens and their allies. While they allowed them to be exiled, to be stripped of their lands and titles, while they let those who committed the worst atrocities against them go unpunished, protected by the new regime. While his own people, those who dared to resist, were confined for life in infamous prisons like the Hollow Bastion, exiled to other lands, and hunted by the rest. His own sentence was no different, even as just a young man back then. Because it didn't matter what he did, it didn't matter how just his actions were; in the eyes of the world, he would always be guilty.
And now, Angellon Norvel, with her predator's eyes and blood-stained hands, intended to subjugate him in the same way, using the same tactics of coercion and threat.
"Don't think I'm going to let you drag me down with you in this stupidity, Svalthren," she stated with a chill that cut the air, interrupting his bitter thoughts. "If you don't do this the easy way, of your own free will, I will have them go find your father in Asnar, and then, I assure you, you will have no damned choice. You are going to work for me, and you will do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you." Her red eyes blazed with an almost tangible intensity, as if she expected to see some glimmer of fear, of desperation, or of submission in Aiden's.
But he only stared at the blood-soaked floor for a few moments, his mind a vortex of memories and a rage that was beginning to crystallize into an unbreakable resolve. His father was in Asnar, yes, a hellish place where no one would lift a finger to help him if the Norvels or Veilon decided to tighten the screws. The image of his father, old and helpless, superimposed itself on the memory of his own cell in the Hollow Bastion. Was he to be chained again? The thought brought a nausea deeper than any blow he had received. There was no chance; in the end, his father would be the one to condemn him, again...
From the moment Veilon gave Angellon the parchment, she had set to work. Aiden never had any chance to escape, to have a free life. The only thing left for him now was to surrender and accept his new role under her control.
"Well?" Angellon insisted, her patience visibly fraying at the edges of her voice. Angellon's question hung in the air, but the real battle was waged within Aiden.
His father's name echoed in his mind like a funeral bell, an old wound that had never fully closed. He thought of the Frozen Keep, of the disastrous attack his father had led and the Cataclysm that followed; a desperate gamble that had cost him and his people everything.
Twenty-two years… Twenty-two years since he was exiled from Zhailon, leaving Aiden completely alone in a crumbling world. What had become of him? Aiden clung to the only hope he could muster: that his father had found peace in some distant land, that he had a new life, a fortress of his own to keep him safe from the likes of Angellon. Maybe she was just bluffing, using the only leverage she knew could move him. He didn't want to believe it; he refused to accept that his father's shadow would be dragged back into this hell. Surely he was someone of value in Asnar—he wanted to believe it.
If this woman thought she had him subdued, she was mistaken. Even if he were to be killed right this instant, he would rather do it on his own terms than die like a frightened dog. If he was going to be a piece in someone's game, he would at least try to dictate some of his own rules, or he would drag his executioners down with him. Aiden was not willing to yield, not this time. He was no longer the naive young man they had crushed fifteen years ago.
"No," he finally mumbled, spitting a mixture of blood and saliva onto the floor with deliberate contempt. Angellon blinked, a flicker of surprise crossing her features before her expression hardened like granite.
"What do you mean, no?" she hissed, her voice a taut thread of disbelief and contained rage. Her tone was steeped in a fury that promised violence. Did this imbecile, this human wreckage covered in blood and filth, not understand the gravity of his situation, the absolute lack of options he had? If necessary, she would tear him to pieces right there, slowly, until he was crawling on the floor begging for his life and his father's.
"I'll do it," he repeated, his voice firmer now, despite the suffering that threatened to end his life, "but on one condition."
Before she could process the audacity of his words, Angellon, moving with the speed of a viper, delivered a swift kick directly to his face. The force of the impact was devastating; his vision blurred for an instant, peppered with blinding lights, and a deafening, high-pitched ringing filled his ears, blocking out all other sound. The impact made him spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor. Aiden tasted more blood gushing from his mouth and nose, and felt a sharp pain in his cheekbone. Her kick was stronger than any blow the burly military man had dealt him; if this continued, he would lose his life shortly.
Angellon leaned over him, her face inches away, and roughly grabbed him by the chin, lifting his head with a gloved hand to force him to look at her. Her red eyes, dilated and wild, shone like a predator's. "And what the hell makes you think you're in any position to negotiate?"
Aiden smiled, a grotesque grimace with his mouth full of his own blood, his teeth stained red. "You can threaten me all you want, Norvel, but the truth is you can't kill me, and you can't touch my father either." His voice was a raspy whisper but loaded with an unshakeable conviction. "You can kill me right now, but then King Veilon is going to demand to know what the hell happened to me. And I know he won't be happy having you around if his subject vanishes the same day it's set free. If I live, you don't get to touch my father. You harm a single hair on his head, and I'll expose you. I'm betting Veilon has no idea what you're really up to, since you have to keep up appearances in public. If you didn't, you would've just taken me by force from the start... but if I'm wrong about that, then I'm a dead man. Still, that's a risk I'm willing to take.So, if you truly want my cooperation, you had better start listening and give me what I want."
Angellon's fingers, still gripping his jaw, trembled visibly.
"You already know who I am," Aiden continued, his voice gaining a surprising hardness despite his weakness. "You already know the reason I was locked in that hell for fifteen years."
"What do you want, Svalthren?" Angellon bit out, her voice a low growl. She released him abruptly and took a step back, giving him a sliver of space to breathe.
Aiden lifted his gaze, his eyes, though swollen and bruised, now shining with something beyond hatred and pain; it was a determination laced with a dark, long-suppressed thirst.
"I want revenge." His voice was barely a whisper, steeped in a resentment he had accumulated his entire life. "I want them to pay. To pay for everything they've done. The Zhailonites. The damned Thalmyrs. The noble clans who crawled at their feet. All that damned scum that has done nothing for generations but crush us, humiliate us, and strip us of everything that was ours... Help me with that… give me the means, the opportunity… and I will work for you. I'll do whatever you ask."
Aiden spat a bloody glob onto the floor, his breathing heavy but surprisingly steady now, his body trembling from adrenaline and exertion. His eyes, bloodshot but lit with a burning fury, locked onto Angellon's without the slightest hint of hesitation. There was no plea in his voice, not the faintest trace of fear. Only a dark promise.
For a moment, a dense, heavy silence took hold of the room. Only the occasional creak of the icy wind against the cracked walls and the constant dripping of Aiden's blood onto the stone floor interrupted the oppressive stillness. Angellon didn't answer immediately; she simply watched him with an impenetrable intensity, her red eyes analyzing every nuance of his expression, every word, as if trying to unravel every fiber of his being, to measure the depth of his hatred and the strength of his resolve.
Aiden didn't know for certain why Angellon Norvel, a woman of her lineage, truly served Veilon Thalmyr. But what he had witnessed that night—the murder of someone from her own side—had revealed much more than she probably intended or than the king knew. If she were truly on the unconditional side of the Zhailonites, of Veilon's men, she would have at least tried to talk to the military man, or to subdue him, before murdering him without the slightest hesitation. And most importantly: the way she had said "you'll work for me," and not "for the king," left no doubt about her own agenda. She didn't blindly follow only King Veilon Thalmyr's orders; Angellon Norvel was on another side.
It was ironic, Aiden thought with a grimace of pain that was almost a smile. He had just met Angellon, and yet, he already knew what kind of person she was, with her haughty bearing and her evident contempt for those she considered inferior. She surely hated the idea that someone like him, a newly released and disgraced prisoner, would dare to demand conditions, to negotiate from a position of apparent weakness.
What Aiden was asking for... deep down, wasn't impossible or unreasonable for someone like her. After all, from what he had been able to deduce from the comments of the bandits and the military man himself, and from the way she acted, Angellon had already been having conflicts with the Zhailonites in other domains like Vharos. Perhaps his thirst for vengeance could, in fact, conveniently align with her objectives.
Angellon took a slow, deliberate step forward, her leather boot crunching softly against the stone debris and dust of the blood-soaked floor. Her right hand was still visibly stained with blood, the dark liquid drying and cracking over her knuckles and between her fingers. She leaned slightly toward him, her shadow cast over Aiden's battered figure in the dim moonlight. A glint of pure malice, of complicity, crossed her pupils as her lips slowly curved into a cruel, predatory smile.
"Fine, Svalthren," she murmured at last, her voice barely a sibilant breath between them. Her words slithered into the air like venom. She straightened up with the same fluid grace, giving Aiden one last, long, appraising look, as if sealing a pact with the devil. "From now on, you will be under my direct orders… and I will grant you the vengeance you so desperately crave."